Lowdtown Friends & Freaks

Lowdtown is Closing Down – Clearance Sale

Ray — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:29:57 +0000

This post has been a long time coming, but it should definitely clear everything up for those confused with the state of Lowdtown.

First of all, to save the drama, Lowdtown will be closing in the next month or so. As the story goes, I was contacted by an artist who has a logo concept very similar to mine. Though I didn’t hear of the artist til he actually contacted me, he apparently copyrighted his logo, and I made the mistake of never doing so. Immediately after, I had to remove everything with the mouthcan logo and the lowdmouth logo.

As you can probably guess, this caused a whole mess of problems for me, and is the reason I had to take down nearly half of the products listed on my store. And as you can imagine, this is at a huge financial loss to me. Especially so because he contacted me literally weeks after I had received my Winter line. To make matters even worse, I’ve been working with Hong Kong since late 2009 and finally received fitted hats in February in which I spent several thousand dollars on; I will not be able to sell those off either.

It is hard to explain how frustrating this is for me, considering I’m a college kid who put my own hard earned cash into making Lowdtown, and the reason why I was able to do wallets and sweaters was from the culmination of my hard work and dedication for Lowdtown. With this event, I pretty much lost all the profit that I’ve been building up to make my future lines even greater.

So what I am asking for is your support. I’m having a clearance sale where I’m literally going to try to get rid of all remaining stock. Shirts will be $6, and the crewnecks will be $12. These prices are pretty much the price I bought them at, so it’s an unbelievably good deal for you guys. Please tell your friends and spread the word about it; I just really need to cut my losses and try to rebuild.

On another note, please don’t harass the artist who contacted me, because the logos are in fact very similar. It’s an unbelievably unfortunate coincidence on my part, but I would’ve thought the same thing if I were him.

On a happier note, I can promise you with my utmost conviction that the rebirth of Lowdtown will be glorious. I’ve already been working on several projects that will definitely put Lowdtown on the map. I’m not one for braggadocio, but I have a secret project that I’ve been developing since November 2009 that I think will blow everyone’s socks off. I’ve never seen it done before, and I’m more than excited to see what everyone’s reactions will be.

Lowdtown, as you might’ve already guessed, will be going through a complete rebranding. I’ve shared the concepts for the new logo with a bunch of my designer friends, and I’ve gotten really positive responses so far. In addition, the website will get a complete overhaul. I’ve been really flexing my web design muscles lately, and if all goes to plan, the new website will be the slickest and sexiest yet.

I’ve also been receiving an amazing amount of support from my twitter followers, so I just want to thank all you guys! I’ll probably post up WIPs and sneak peeks when it gets closer to the relaunch, so if you’re interested you should follow me: @Lowdtown.

Right now, I’m shooting for Summer 2010 (probably late June or July), which is a really ambitious date, but hopefully I can pull it off. I’ll keep you guys posted! Thanks again for all the support!

-Ray (Lowdtown Friends & Freaks)

Sleeveface

dunz0 — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 04:37:33 +0000

I’ve always enjoyed looking at pictures of people who have taken album covers with faces and matched them up with their own bodies. Did you know that there’s a whole website dedicated to these fun photographs? Sleeveface is a site where you can see tons of user-submitted pictures of this nature. The site defines the term sleeveface as “one or more persons obscuring or augmenting any part of their body or bodies with record sleeve(s) causing an illusion.” What a fantastic idea! Here are a few examples from the site:

Check out Sleeveface to see other great sleevefaces!

MIRP

adamvaudin — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 16:10:29 +0000

MIRP, or Monsters In Real places is just a cool lil blog where you can send in a picture of a monster you’ve made in the real world. I thought ‘why not’ when I saw it on an artist named NVasion’s flickr, so I drew one up quickly.

Check them out or add one, http://monstersinrealplaces.blogspot.com/

T-Shirt War!!

dunz0 — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:46:52 +0000

I just saw this incredible video and knew that I had to share it with all of you. This is a brilliant idea and insanely fun to watch. Check out how 222 t-shirts can be put to great use!

Mr. T + T-shirts = Mr. Tee

dunz0 — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 21:28:11 +0000

Murraymullet has submitted an awesome piece that’s now up for voting at Threadless. “Mr. Tee” is a portrait of Mr. T made entirely of t-shirts. The folds, creases, and shadows are perfect! Why did I never think of this brilliant idea? I definitely want to see this printed!

http://www.threadless.com/submission/251996/Mr_Tee

iPad FFFUUUUUUU

Ray — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:35:52 +0000

I decided to make a FFFUUUU cartoon to explain my frustrations of the new iPad in a sophisticated manner.

Arcade Expressionism is Awesome

dunz0 — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:38:27 +0000

One of the coolest Threadless tees that I’ve seen in a while was released this week. Titled “Arcade Expressionism,” Laser Bread’s homage to Donkey Kong combines an old-school video game with abstract art. This was one of the pieces that Laser Bread made for his 2009 Make Something Cool Every Day project, and I’m glad that it was submitted for voting. Even if you’re unfamiliar with the game, it’s still pretty awesome to look at and interpret.

GLAMNATION

adamvaudin — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:51:05 +0000

Glamnation, also known as Dennis Chow, is a super awesome artist and graphic designer. His bold graphic work reminds me of comic books, punk music and the 80’s. Working for/with such super companies as Nike, Mishka and Momentum his work is definetly recieving the recognition it deserves. Check it out ! http://www.glamnation.ca/

Farkfk’s Montana Series

dunz0 — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 05:34:14 +0000

I know that this is my second Munny post in a row, but these guys were too cool to not write about. Farkfk has been working on a series of custom Munny toys called the “Montana Series.” These Munny figures are painted with Montana Gold spray paint, and what’s especially neat is that the spray cans become home for these toys. These Munny are each painted with one color, but because of the creative use of the cans, they’re by no means boring to look at! Check out other amazing vinyl toy customizations at Farkfk’s flickr.

Rad Lunch Bags !

adamvaudin — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:05:51 +0000

This is a whole blog about a dad who paints these lunch bags for his kids everyday, what a sweet thing to do. Definetly a memory I hope they keep and an idea I hope inspires other people to create art out of ordinary supermarket products.